It's the end of an era as Barry Humphries bids farewell to Sir Les Patterson,
Sandy Stone, and the divine Dame Edna Everage

Age has not withered the wit, mischief and bravura showmanship of Barry Humphries. OK, maybe it has a bit. There are moments during his farewell show – Eat Pray Laugh! – when you can see why, approaching 80, he’s wise to embark on a long goodbye. There’s the odd little lull during the repartee, a lack of litheness too, an occasional shortness of breath. Overall, though, his remarkable adieu – which brings him back to the West End after 15 years – is a testament to his unflagging stamina and sets the seal on a career that has shown exceptional staying power.

The last time Humphries was at the Palladium, in 1997, he was Fagin in Oliver! Since the 1970s he has been able to consider himself part of the cultural furniture – one of us. He has outraged his native Australia over the years, but Oz should be proud of him too. Humphries is a wizard. And when he steps forward at the end to take a bow as himself, having ceremonially laid all his characters to rest in a video montage to the wistful soundtrack of “Wish Me Luck (As You Wave Me Goodbye)”, there’s a near-unbearable sense of Prospero snapping his staff, of revels now being ended.

That said, much of the first half is a riot of vulgarity. A mad-eyed, leering and priapic Sir Les Patterson, sporting summer garb and spattering the front rows with spittle, tries to rustle up some gourmet rissoles in his back-yard barbie with the help of a fresh-faced quartet of helpers and a couple plucked from the audience. Heedless of hygiene, he’s suffering from gastroenteritis, relayed in thunderous, lavatorial detail. Australia’s former “cultural attaché” is giving up politics to become a celebrity chef but political incorrectness remains on the menu – as do innumerable innuendos and passing insults. “The last time I saw a face like that it had a hook in it,” he chides one unfortunate un-smiling Sheila. Even after all this time, he remains an acquired taste.

The evening takes a turn for the unexpectedly moving with a sedentary monologue from the mournful, ghostly Sandy Stone – spirited up in his dressing-gown by Sir Les’s (less funny) paedophile priest brother Gerard. Then it’s back after the interval to audience-baiting at its uproarious best, as Dame Edna Everage arrives in glittering, regal style on the back of a (fake) elephant to reveal she’s abandoning the fickle world of celebrity after a spiritual awakening in an Indian ashram. It’s an hour of unalloyed comic pleasure – complete with risqué laughs at the expense of two hapless hand-picked volunteers.

As Humphries' best-loved creation warbles a sentimental intro to the show's joyous theme tune, his falsetto strained and cracked by age, every line tugs at our heartstrings. “I think 'This can’t be it! They need me. How dare I quit?'” How will we cope without her? To borrow Browning’s line “Never glad confident morning again!” – “Never gladioli-waving happy evening again!” It’s not just the end of our Edna, then, but the end of an era.